A Huge Advantage

"Tch!" Yota rolled his eyes, thoroughly speechless at Kaido’s brazen self-righteousness.

In the Pirate World, talking people into submission was truly useless; everything depended on fists to make sense. Even villains were villainous with complete confidence, without the slightest trace of guilt or shame.

Fortunately, Yota had never expected to defeat Kaido with words. Clenching his fists, he charged forward again.

Ace, Yamato, Asura Doji, Denjiro, and the others had all made their preparations as well, ready to swarm Kaido and beat him down together.

Just then, a cry rang out from the sky. A black shadow descended from above, kicking Ace and Yamato away before standing in front of the others.

"It’s King," Kaido said, looking at his most trusted subordinate. "There was a small problem with the plan. Oni Island is completely gone."

At that, Kaido simply covered his face and began sobbing. "That was my base! It just vanished completely in an instant! All my assets were there!"

King was clearly used to Kaido’s behavior when drunk. "Sorry, Brother Kaido. I came too late."

"No." Kaido sobered up in a second, a savage grin spreading across his face. "You came too early! I haven’t had enough fun yet!"

Watching the two act as though no one else existed, Yota rolled his eyes and said to the others, "Leave Kaido to me. You deal with King first!"

"Since King is already here, the main force of the Beasts Pirates probably isn’t far behind! Take King down as quickly as possible, though the odds aren’t great…"

"Yota, isn’t it too much for you to fight Kaido alone?" Ace frowned beside him. "Otherwise, maybe we could use that move!"

As if he had remembered something, Yota shook his head like a rattle drum. "No, no. Unless it’s a life-or-death situation, I don’t want to fuse with someone else!"

"But if you want to~~" Yota’s gaze circled Ace and Yamato twice. "The two of you could try fusing. Ice and fire fusion sounds pretty good."

Ace shuddered. Imagining the feeling of having two lumps hanging from his chest, he immediately shook his head. "Forget it. Let’s save that as a last resort."

Tacitly skipping over the subject, Yota charged at Kaido again without hesitation.

During this battle, he had discovered that his flaws were far greater than he had imagined. Whether in physical strength or bodily potential, he might not be inferior to Kaido—perhaps he even surpassed him. But in the use of Three Colors Haki and the training and development of his own body, he was undoubtedly far behind.

This meant that when facing opponents weaker than himself, Yota could easily defeat them with his exceptional raw attributes. But against Four Emperors-level opponents whose physical qualities were nearly equal to his own, he was basically getting beaten senseless.

However, with eight lives and ninjutsu as his trump cards, Yota was not afraid in the slightest. He intended to use Kaido as a whetstone. The point was to charge in recklessly!

I may not be able to pull off the sit-ups of Luffy, the Nika Fruit user, but I’ve put in eight coins. There’s no way I can’t pass Teacher Kaido’s lessons!

Kaido, whose fighting spirit had already boiled over, swung his club at Yota without hesitation. Amid a thunderous boom, the two immediately became locked in battle.

"Have his injuries already recovered? Even among awakened Mythical Zoan-type users, such recovery abilities must be exceedingly rare."

After exchanging two moves, Kaido noticed the problem. Yota possessed Hashirama Senju’s Sage Body.

There was no need to explain how absurdly overpowered Hashirama Senju’s Sage Body was. Although people in the Pirate World had tenacious vitality, unless they possessed Devil Fruit abilities with regeneration like Phoenix Marco, their recovery abilities were a joke compared to Hashirama Senju’s Sage Body.

In the time it took to exchange a few words, the injuries Yota had suffered from several of Kaido’s club strikes had already completely healed. Yet the wound on Kaido’s foot was still spurting blood.

He possessed the top-tier Mythical Zoan Azure Dragon Fruit along with Oni race bloodline. Other than those with regenerative abilities, his recovery capacity could be called the best in the world. Yet compared to Yota, who could recover immediately after being injured, he was still far inferior.

"Do I have to kill him in one go without holding back? This brat… he’s even more like an immortal than I am."

Kaido became completely serious. Armament Haki and Conqueror’s Haki erupted in full force, flames and lightning winding around the spiked club in his hand as he smashed it directly at Yota.

Daweitoku – Thunder Bagua!

With a thunderous crash, Yota was blasted away. But this time, Kaido did not relax in the slightest. He charged forward himself, giving Yota no chance to catch his breath.

Kundali – Ryūsei-gun!

Drunken Wheel of Thunder – In Naraka!

Kaido’s attacks came like a raging storm, nearly turning Yota into a ping-pong ball. Kaido, now completely serious, was clearly much stronger than Yota, who was currently using only Haki.

After one barrage of attacks, Yota was nearly beaten unconscious. Yet it was precisely at such times that he could feel his Armament Haki and Observation Haki slowly improving.

Thus, after being sent flying, Yota charged back before Kaido could come after him. He resumed fighting him, only to suffer another round of brutal beating.

Though he struggled to endure and barely had any chance to counterattack, Yota was enjoying himself. In battle, the weak points in his Armament Haki that he could not identify during training were being exposed and corrected one by one, while his Observation Haki grew increasingly sharper.

As his Haki improved, Yota, who had been stuck taking hits, gradually became able to return one or two attacks out of every ten moves.

Of course, his injuries were also piling up more and more severely. Even with the Sage Body, when fresh wounds were added before old ones had healed, the injuries would continue accumulating and worsening.

Kaido was using precisely this method to continuously pressure Yota’s body, intending to crush him completely in the end.

Of course, Kaido was still being too naive—if he knew Yota had eight lives, he definitely would not use this tactic. Otherwise, Yota would never be crushed; Kaido might instead exhaust himself to death.

In fact, as long as Yota brought out his Dark-Dark Fruit abilities, it would be enough to make Kaido suffer badly—the Dark-Dark Fruit restrained all Devil Fruit abilities. Its effect in the Pirate World was even more absurd than its effect in the Naruto World.

If Kaido lost the abilities of the Azure Dragon Fruit, it would truly be questionable whether he could defeat Yota, who possessed three Devil Fruit abilities.

However, Kaido still felt that he held a huge advantage.